Ten Poems from Russia

These ten poems take us to the heart of human experience with all the passion of the Russian spirit.

We find poems of love and poems celebrating the beauty of birch-wood and steppe, alongside poems that touch on the anguish of being a poet in times of political upheaval. Elsewhere, a sense of heady pageantry characterises a mother’s hopes for her daughter setting out into the world:

“Drink wine, ride troikas, sing loud in the bar-room,
be a blue-eyed gypsy, be a temptress.”

from ‘To Alya’ by Marina Tsvetaeva

The selection is a first co-publication with Pushkin Press and offers a thrilling snapshot of a vast and unique literary landscape.

Boris Dralyuk was born in Odessa but has lived in Los Angeles since he was a child. He has translated Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry and Odessa Stories and also selected and introduced 1917: Stories and Poems from the Russian Revolution, all for Pushkin Press.